The Greatest Rivalry That Never Existed

A Rare Showdown Between Manning and Roethlisberger

On Sunday, Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger will be only meeting for the third time in their NFL careers.
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By

Jonathan Clegg

Nov. 2, 2012 8:14 p.m. ET

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.—By all rights, Sunday's showdown between Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger at MetLife Stadium should be the latest instalment in one of the league's marquee rivalries.

Since they were selected 10 spots apart in the 2004 NFL draft, these two quarterbacks have won four of the following nine Super Bowls, have thrown for a combined 58,000 yards and 376 touchdowns, and have become the public faces of two of the game's most iconic franchises.

But Sunday's game isn't so much a rivalry as a rarity. Even after a decade in the league, this is just the third head-to-head matchup between Manning and Roethlisberger. While other famous adversaries seem to face each other every season—Peyton Manning and Tom Brady have played 13 times since 2001—one of the game' great potential duels takes place about as often as the Summer Olympics.

"Those guys are at a sweet point in their careers, where they're both experienced but still in their primes. Both guys have been to the big dance and delivered," Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said of Sunday's confrontation between the two quarterbacks. "That's what this profession is all about."

How two of the premier passers of this era have faced each other so infrequently is largely down to the construction of the league's schedule, which was modified in 2002 to increase the number of intraconference matchups each season. Because the Giants and Steelers play in different conferences, they're due to meet just once every four years under the current formula.

Manning and Roethlisberger first played each other as rookies in 2004, when the Steelers won, 33-30, in overtime at Giants Stadium. They didn't meet again until the Giants' 21-14 win at Heinz Field in 2008, and their next regular-season encounter isn't scheduled to take place until 2016.

But even before its current scheduling alignment, the NFL had struggled to produce regular showdowns between its superstar quarterbacks. Joe Montana and John Elway faced each other just six times during their careers—and three of those came after Montana's late-career move to the Kansas City Chiefs.

Elway and Dan Marino met on just three occasions across 15 seasons. Sunday's matchup between Manning and Roethlisberger is the first time quarterbacks from opposing conferences with multiple Super Bowl championships have met in a regular-season game since Montana's San Francisco 49ers beat Jim Plunkett's Los Angeles Raiders in 1985.

"It would be fun to play him [more]," Roethlisberger said this week, addressing the possibility of a regular meeting with Manning. "He's obviously a great player. It would be [quite a rivalry]."

What would have made a Roethlisberger-Manning rivalry so compelling is how their different skill sets have produced strikingly similar results. Both players are renowned for their clutch play and fourth-quarter fireworks, with a combined 51 game-winning drives between them. They are two of the best deep passers in today's game, as evidenced by career marks of more than 12 yards per completion. And lately both players have succeeded in transitioning their teams from traditional run-first offenses into two of the league's most explosive downfield passing attacks.

"Both teams have become more passing teams in the past few years. That's when they've had their success," said Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride. "It's funny—their styles are different, but they're both very talented players."

That two such talented players won't meet again for four years—unless the Steelers and Giants face each other in a Super Bowl—is a shame for followers of the game, football historians and TV analysts, who love to talk up meetings between superstar quarterbacks.

But the rarity of these matchups isn't just bad news for the fans. As he prepared to face Roethlisberger for the first time as the Giants' defensive coordinator, Perry Fewell lamented the fact that he was forced to draw up a plan to face the Steelers quarterback from scratch.

"You don't play him every year, so you see him, but you don't study him as much as you do when you're playing an opponent," said Fewell. "But he's an impressive guy. He's a big man that stands in the pocket and if he has to leave the pocket, he can throw on the run. I've seen him zip some slants in there and I was like 'Wow.' That's why he's a two-time Super Bowl winner."

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